


Zombie and the Free Hands Society

by CherryFlight



Series: Oddworld: The Free Hands Society [1]
Category: Oddworld
Genre: Class Differences, Drama, Gen, Minor suicidal ideations, Themes: Privilege, disrespect of boundaries, idk if I need to add something to these tags or if one of them is wrong let me know, suicide baiting/bullying, transphobia (in backstory)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26101123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryFlight/pseuds/CherryFlight
Summary: Zombie's life has not been fun.  What Mudokon slave's life ever has been?  Sure, he's had a longer, more varied experience than most others, but it's hardly enriched his life, as far as he's concerned.  He does his best to get through each day, for lack of any other way to go.He is entirely unprepared for the secret that's been hiding right under his nose.The "Pilot Episode" of a new series that may or may not intersect with my other Oddworld series.
Series: Oddworld: The Free Hands Society [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895071
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m really sorry, sir,” Zombie said in the most placating tone he could muster. It was all he could do to avoid giving away his fear as he returned from the rows of hanging baskets and pots sporting their lively green. “We’re out of the Paramonian Climbers. Most of our hanging vines are very nice, though, and we can certainly find some that pair well visually with-…”

“ _Shut it!_ ” the Glukkon in the expensive suit snapped. Zombie flinched as he leaned forward to glower at him over the counter. He made a show of studying the leaf-shaped nametag clipped to his white polo. “’Zombie’, huh? Yeah, that’s about right. Sam popped out a real ugly dud of an egg, didn’t she?”

Zombie frowned for a moment at his own paw, and the sickly-looking pale blue-gray skin that had given him his name. But he knew better than to say anything – it would only become fuel for the irate Glukkon to use against him.

The customer turned to his Slig assistant, as if just now noticing he hadn’t been following along with his rage. “Show him again!” he snapped.

The Slig shrugged, and held out the BotaniCo catalog they’d come in with. “This is the one the boss wants,” he said, tapping the image of the Paramonian Climber, with a bored exasperation that suggested he knew as well as Zombie did that repeating their demands wouldn’t actually cause the plant to magic itself onto the shelves.

“ _Why_ aren’t you conveying my _emphasis_?” the Glukkon snapped, and the Slig flinched, then pointed at the picture more emphatically.

“This one. The boss wants _this_ one, you hear me?” he demanded, but he sounded more afraid than anything.

The Glukkon growled. “You’ve gotta have some in the back, you lazy piece of filth.”

“I’m sorry, but we j-just don’t _have_ -…”

“Don’t you have a supervisor I could talk to? You’re clearly lying. How do you run _out_ of your stock? Live plants are too expensive for that kind of demand.”

“I don’t know what the ordering process is like-...”

This time, the interruption came in the approach of a Slig from behind him, summoned by the call for a supervisor. Zombie could swear he responded to that more readily than his own name.

“Something wrong here, sir?” Foggy asked, straightening out his vest in an effort to disguise that he’d been slouched in a chair somewhere.

“This Mudokon doesn’t want to serve me,” said the Glukkon. “I need five more Paramonian Climbers to match the one I’ve already got. My office space looks _horribly_ lopsided, and I’ve got the most important meeting of my career coming up. I need to make a good impression, and this bug-eyed upstart thinks he can pull one over on me.”

Foggy looked at Zombie. Zombie shrugged. “We’re out, Foggy. I looked.”

“ _But not in the back,_ ” said the Glukkon, and his assistant looked up as if begging the heavens for patience. Zombie hoped they could hear his silent plea through the ceiling.

Foggy sighed deeply. “But our stockroom’s not made for that, no sunlight. Storing plants isn’t like-…”

“Are you telling me this _Mudokon_ knows better than me!?” the Glukkon roared. “What sort of worthless Slig sides with one of _them_ over one of _us_?”

Foggy instinctively flinched, and waved Zombie to the back of the store. “Just go. Go check.”

“ _Thank_ you,” said the Glukkon, with a self-important little sniff. “And you’d better give him proper discipline after this. It’ll make you look better when my review comes in.”

Zombie hurried to the back, past the frosted-glass office door. His boss probably thought he was looking for a pot or something, because his passage was ignored. For a second, he entertained the thought of setting one Glukkon on another just to see what would happen, but then the fallout would ultimately double when it finally reached him, with frustration amplifying between links in the chain, from Aron to Foggy to him.

The windowless stockroom lit by a single bare standard bulb was, of course, devoid of actual plants. It was for employee living supplies, pots, soil, and other things one didn’t have to worry about dying if left there. Zombie sat on a large overturned pot – probably upended for this very purpose by the last person sent on a wild meech chase to the back – and tried to compose his nerves. He wasn’t sure how to break it to this utterly delusional Glukkon that he, a lowly Mudokon, was in the right.


	2. Chapter 2

The stockroom was quiet, closed off from the rest of the store, itself quiet at this late hour. It made the chorus of Glukkon laughter and cries of excitement coming from somewhere distant jarring enough to make him jump up from his seat.

This was it; he’d snapped from the stress. Aron and the customer were the only Glukkons on the premises, right? He had to be hearing things.

And then it happened again, and Zombie thought he could pinpoint a direction for them – somewhere _below_ him. It was probably a bad idea to go looking for strange Glukkons, but Zombie hadn’t heard anything about a basement, or other members of management. BotaniCo was small enough to only need one, still.

By the time he thought maybe Aron lived here too and he was about to barge in on _his home_ , he’d already spotted a curious little latch worked into the tile at the back of the room. It was clearly meant to be hidden, with anything anyone might need from this area two or three shelves up. Zombie had never questioned why the shelves beneath the smaller pots were always empty; he’d never even given it any thought. But the presence of this latch answered the question he had never asked. If you were looking up at the pots, you couldn’t be looking down at the floor here, and the dim lighting made it look like a bit of uneven grout at any quick glances in its direction.

He was going to be in so much trouble. But now that he was looking at it, the thought occurred to him that no self-respecting Glukkon lived in a _basement_ when his employees lived above him on ground level. And he just had to know what kind of Glukkons _did_.

The latch was less straightforward than he thought it might be, requiring a twist before it would let go of the trapdoor worked into the tile. None of his coworkers ever said anything about this, so maybe Aron got Foggy’s help with it. It certainly couldn’t be manipulated by a Glukkon alone, unless he got down on the floor to work it with his mouth.

The trapdoor sprung open when he released the latch, and a blinding flood of artificial sunlight filled the dim stockroom. Zombie squinted through it, pausing as his eyes adjusted. When he could look down into the revealed doorway, he saw a ladder leading down to a cozy-looking cream-colored rug, worn by constant use.

A _ladder_. How did Glukkons get down here? Was this service access to some underground apartment that had some other surface-level entrance? What was it doing under a potted plant store? Maybe Aron got funds on the side as a landlord? Why the warm sun lamps and the nice rug for _service_ access, though? Shouldn’t this section be as cold and uninviting as possible, to keep unsightly Mudokons or Sligs from lingering?

Zombie gave one last glance at the stockroom door. He could close and lock the trapdoor, go back out to the front, and tell the customer he couldn’t find the plant he was looking for. He would be as safe as he could possibly be.

He had so many _questions_ , though. 

Another round of laughter came from below, accompanied by an exasperated groan, and a playful, “Aw, come on, you damn bits of plastic!”

This puzzle would nag at him for the rest of his life if he left it unsolved. Swallowing a terrified gulp, he lowered himself onto the ladder and descended into the bright unknown. He hadn't survived for so long by _avoiding_ finding secrets to bank. And if he failed? Twenty-six was a damn good run for a Mudokon.

At the bottom, no further than the rug’s length, was a doorway marked with a diamond-shaped sign bearing a logo he’d never seen. It appeared to depict, in black silhouette, a pair of five-fingered hands with an extremely short thumb, one turned outward and slightly cupped as if in offering. 

Beyond that were plants, thriving under the bright sunlamps. Plants he _knew_. They were clearly labeled, every single product BotaniCo stocked, crawling up bars set against the walls and across a grate hanging from the ceiling. The Paramonian Climber was present but short, and someone had taped a bright yellow note to its pot, reading _“Wait until I grow to take more cuttings!”_ punctuated further with a cute little smiley. He didn’t recognize the handwriting.

So much for ordering their plants from some Vykker-run greenhouse. So much for not having Paramonian Climber in the back, _somehow_.

“Ones! Every single one! They hate me!” said the Glukkon from before, much closer now. “What did I ever do to you little guys?” he asked through disbelieving laughter, surrounded by jovial teasing laughs from others. “Heal me!” he croaked in a bad imitation of a Slig.

“You’re unconscious, dimwit!” said another, pitching his voice up to mimic a Vykker. His impression was better. “You can’t beg me for healing!” They both descended into more laughter, followed by the other voices. They were having a good time, but Zombie was having a hard time imagining it happening at nobody else’s expense. He just had to see it for himself. Just a peek.

Hoping he could find furniture to hide behind, Zombie crept out into the open space beyond the plant room, and found it _too_ open. Six Glukkon heads snapped up to stare at him with unguarded shock. For an absurd split second, it looked like they had been decapitated, because from the neck down, he didn’t recognize them. They weren’t standing tall to tower over him, they were collapsed on wedge-shaped beanbags that propped their heads up. Instead of suits, they wore loose tunic-style shirts that rendered their bodies shapeless lumps draped on the beanbags. And their arms were bare, skinny and twice as long as their bodies, each of them needing only their forearms to reach the game board between them. They ended in large five-fingered hands, with an incredibly short, balance-oriented stub of a thumb.

Recognizing them for what they were was only the beginning. Because once that was out of the way, he still had to process what they were doing.

It was just a game, with plastic figures and bright polyhedral dice on a map in erasable marker. But between their relative state of undress, their unprofessional unbridled cheer, and their proximity to one other, it almost felt like he’d walked in on something far more private. It was nonsense, of course, but the impression had been made. His brain warred with itself, the urges to gawk and turn away locked in a stalemate as he and the Glukkons stared at each other in mute horror.

The silence stretched on. One of the Glukkons searched him and the space behind him with piercing, observant eyes fraught with desperation.

“Aw, _shit_.” Aron’s voice came from above. 

Zombie jumped, and spun to face the entrance as a pair of familiar green shoes hit the rug. Aron himself followed, half falling and half sliding down the ladder’s sides, with a swirl of what looked like a cape in motion, but as it settled on his shoulders resolved into simply his suit, unbuttoned far enough to throw back. His arms were highly toned compared to the others, absorbing the impact of his landing with only the slightest grunt. Under his suit, he wore something like the others, a loose shirt to cover his tiny body, but in dark green to match his suit-cape.

It was the silliest, most unnatural thing Zombie had ever seen, the boss he had always worked in fear of carried by these comically long arms, without the illusion his suit made of a broad chest.

But, he realized, wasn’t it _more_ natural, actually? What he really was? It felt like someone had put his mind into one of those novelty mirror mazes, but he couldn’t pick out which was the normal reflection.

“Zombie,” said Aron, a mere handful of long strides closing the distance between them. It would have been a long, awkward waddle. The look he directed down at him was not one of threat or rage, but horror, and his voice matched, a waver breaking any chance of sounding imposing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor edit: miscounted the number of Glukkons in my own damn fic.
> 
> Anyway as long as I’m writing end notes now: I haven’t managed so many characters in one scene before so I hope I do okay in the chapters to come!


	3. Chapter 3

Zombie looked up at Aron, more vulnerable than he’d ever seen him, and yet scarier than ever before. He had backed him into a corner without meaning to, and now there was no telling what he would do.

He’d known he was going to be in trouble, after all. He just had to keep reminding himself, twenty-six was a damn good run.

“A customer had me go to the back to look for some Paramonian Climber. I noticed this latch and-…”

Aron interrupted him, the vague green glow from his dark eyes intensifying. “So you go sit down on that big pot, and- and just wait a bit like everyone _else_ who gets sent to the back for some bullshit! It’s practically a free break! Why would you go snooping around like this?”

“I heard something…”

Aron looked at the gathering of Glukkons he’d walked in on.

“We… _may_ have gotten a little loud,” said the one playing the dice-cursed Slig, a scrawny-looking Glukkon with purplish skin. The others nodded, or made wordless noises of assent.

“Sorry, Aron,” said another, spindly enough to seem eerily spiderlike.

Aron sighed. “I’ll look into better sound-proofing. Just…now we got a problem. What do we do with Zombie, here?”

For a moment, Zombie began to hope he might actually be safe. And then one of them had to go and say it, a giant of a Glukkon with broad shoulders that let him lift himself completely clear of the beanbag with no stretching, just planting his hands on the floor. Even his body seemed to be bulkier than the others under his tunic.

“Just get rid of him, right? Nobody thinks twice about a retired Mud.”

“Charlie, I don’t have an on-site Recycler…”

“So send him somewhere else, yeah?” Charlie said. He dragged himself off the beanbag, raising himself to his full height - a full head taller than the average Glukkon. “You were RuptureFarms, you gotta know someone still makin’ Mudokon Pops or something.”

“So he can blab to everyone in earshot in line for slaughter? I don’t think so,” said Aron.

“Guys,” said the scrawny Slig player, “Why don’t we just let him go? It’s not like he knows we’re anything but some weird half-naked gaming club. We keep the real subversive stuff on the down-low and- _mmph!”_

His larger neighbor reached over and pulled him off his beanbag to roll into a pin, slapping both hands over the offender’s mouth while locking him in place between his elbows. “Onisk, you _fucking_ moron,” he snapped, not seeming to care about his spectacles now dangling from their chain on one ear.

“’Subversive stuff’? Zombie repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Aron gestured at the pot with the tiny stalk of Paramonian Climber. It was so strange, watching him wave at it with his hand, instead of tipping his head at it. So strange, the ease with which he balanced on one hand, the tip of his head the _wrong_ way to balance his weight. It took him a second to realize he hadn’t absorbed any of the meaning behind the gesture at all, so distracted by the movement itself.

“I don’t get it.”

“Good.”

“No, no, we gotta kill him now,” said Charlie. Zombie looked over his shoulder. “He knows something’s up.”

“But what do we kill him _with_ , gentlegluks? Our dice?” asked the sharp-eyed one wryly. He held up one of their dice and tossed it at Zombie.

“Ow,” he said instinctively as it bounced off his head, though it barely hurt at all. He turned and looked down at the gold-inked 20 shining up at him from its candy-pink face. It looked so strangely out of place, he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“See, he’s not even afraid,” the Glukkon concluded.

“ _Theoretically_ , we could just hold him down and snap his neck,” said another, collected and calm. He made no move to rise, gave no anticipatory twitch of his hands. “Gravity is on our side, in this case, as is Mudokon bone structure. What do you think?”

There was very little call to action in those calm words. All the same, Zombie reminded himself he had expected to die. But nobody responded. A few even looked at their own hands with displeased uncertainty, and Charlie seemed to wither, dipping slightly.

“We all know this,” the calm Glukkon continued. “Don’t we? We have been taught not to use our own hands because we are ‘above’ such things. But what does that really mean? Why do we, enlightened as we are, still ask what _weapons_ we have to kill with when we know our own hands hold that power?”

Onisk’s captor sighed, still holding his hands over the other Glukkon’s mouth. Onisk seemed almost bored with waiting to be released, as if being sat on to keep silent was an everyday occurrence. “Janor, you’re my brother and I love you… but _quit it_ with the philosophy and get to the point.”

“What’s this ‘enlightened’ stuff anyway?” said Charlie, quieter now than his initial call for Zombie’s death. “We just figured out we wanna actually use our hands for stuff, and freedom to move around is pretty nice.”

“ _And_ some long-term thinking,” said the sharp-eyed Glukkon. “Things that seem so obvious to us, right? But not to everyone else. That’s what Janor means by enlightenment.”

“ _Thank you_ , Lane,” said Janor, with the slightest hint of irritation as he glanced at Charlie, who tensed an arm further as if debating stepping back, his fingers on that hand flexing against the floor. “I’m glad someone appreciates my point of view.”

“Can we, uh, not do the fighting thing, guys?” asked the spidery Glukkon. Zombie thought he might have been the Vykker’s player. The whine his voice trailed into sounded like his in-character falsetto. “Give Charlie a break. If anyone deserves to claim that take, it’s him.”

“Look, everyone, I still don’t know what you’re going on about. I just _really_ thought it might be worth it to follow your voices instead of going back out there. You know, to the customer who sent me on a wild meech chase-…” He came up short as once-parallel trains of thought crashed into each other. “ _Meeches._ ” He spun and jabbed a finger in excitement at Aron, caught up in this flash of understanding. “ _Meeches_ , that’s what,” he pointed at the Paramonian Climber pot and its single, pathetic vine clinging to its support, “ _that_ is about! We _have_ the damn thing in the back, after all, but you don’t want to give it away!”

He’d seen the phrase _wild meech chase_ come into use, as meeches grew scarcer and scarcer as his old workplace’s primary branch hunted them into extinction. It had set off a cascade of frenetic activity that had led to more hunting of wildlife, and then…

He lowered his paw as he remembered Charlie’s comment about Mudokon Pops.

He was completely unprepared for the sight of Aron rearing back to launch his weight in a punch. It caught him in the gut and followed through to knock him to the ground, gasping for breath that refused to stay in his lungs. Above him, Aron caught himself on his other hand and swung with almost Scrablike fluidity to face him again. A short hop brought his palm onto his forehead, pinning him to the floor before he could try to rise.

“Don’t you _dare_ think of letting him know it’s down here!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's where the bulk of the suicidal ideation in the tags happens. Zombie isn't okay (and the society he lives in is _beyond_ fucked), but that doesn't mean you should have to feel the same way. Take care of yourselves!

Dazed, Zombie thought he didn’t want to go back to the customer after this. To _have_ that easy out but not be able to take it. _Aron_ might think nothing of having him beaten to mollify the customer, but…

“Telling him would make him go away…” he said. He was rewarded with the Glukkon’s other hand on his chest, and the suffocating burden of his full weight. Absurdly, instinctively avoiding staring straight up his tunic (though there was nothing of note but his useless, vestigial legs; Aron was no drone), he swiveled his eyes towards the group of Glukkons, now watching with avid interest (morbid, even horrified, strangely enough), propped up on their elbows. Janor had joined Charlie in rising completely. _He_ still seemed completely unflappable.

“Are you testing my theory, Aron?” Janor asked.

The hand on Zombie’s head moved, looking for purchase that would let him wrench his neck just right, a sweat-slick alien touch on the side of his face. Closing his eyes against its threat, he tried to will himself to remain still, whatever happened. He had baited death, in some way _preferred_ it; he tried to tell himself he had no right to fear it.

Something in the back of his mind said he could try to roll and unbalance him, easy as that.

Twenty-six _was_ a damn good run.

So many of his colleagues that hadn’t lived to see the closure of their smaller RuptureFarms branch had barely lived half that. He remembered thinking, in the back of his mind, that they were lucky to no longer have to live in fear of their next berating or beating.

But, said the part of him that counted itself lucky to still live, _but…_

Was Aron defending the life of a plant? 

Had he written a note to protect it? In first person? Had he _drawn a cute smiley face on it_?

Was this the same person trying to kill him?

Was this what Janor was trying to say?

“Mudokon Pops…” he said, half muffled against the hand that had found a grip on his jaw. “…wouldn’t exist if the meeches had been kept to breed. But it was…easier not to question. So, we started dying.”

“Uh…what?” Aron said above him. The hand on his chest slipped off, his weight easing off of him. “You didn’t, though…not until after. Production never started at 1029.”

“ _Production_. Not even ‘butchery’. Lines on conveyor belts. Levers you make yourself unable to pull.”

Aron let him go completely, stepped back, into the lamplight. “Uh…you hit your head a bit too hard there, Zombie?”

He didn’t know why he felt like laughter was the only way to respond to what sounded so much like concern. It came out of him a startlingly unhinged giggle. He wasn’t sure if he should be worried, but that certainly answered the question in his own mind. “You know what, maybe. I wanted to die but, also not. Waffled on it for a really long time. Not even sure now.”

“Fairly typical for a Mudokon, actually,” said the Glukkon who had pinned Onisk, slipping into a clear, lecture-ready enunciation. He pushed himself upright and fixed his glasses while Onisk dragged himself out from under him, and gave a brief shake like a wet Slog to force his clothes to drape correctly. “Demand for the Vykker ‘Shrink’ models is consistent with lower turnover rates across every business type, provided the correct programming.”

“I think I _like_ this one,” said Janor. It could have sounded predatory, coming from any other Glukkon, in any other context. But a hint of actual warmth, pleasant surprise, had slipped into his calm. “There’s a point he’s trying to make, and I believe it agrees with you – with _us_ , even. Did you notice that he compared our high-demand ivy to meeches, or were you too afraid of losing it to see?”

“I, uh…” Going from deadly to vulnerable again in an instant, Aron scratched at his wrist. Zombie’s head spun with cognitive whiplash.

“Estric,” Janor said, and Zombie sat up to watch him turn to the suddenly-eloquent Glukkon who had belittled Onisk as _a fucking moron_ before. “Humor us, dear brother, and tell us again about the stability RuptureFarms might have enjoyed had they simply waited for the meech population to recover?”

Estric snorted. “You mean the stability everyone involved closes their eyes and ears to? There might have been complaints for a while – like the ones at their extinction – but imagine the comeback ad campaigns! It would have created a predictable cycle of profit,” he lifted a forearm to make a circular motion with his hand, “instead of the absolute _clusterfuck,_ ” he punctuated the swear by slapping his hand back down on the floor, “that Molluck had to desperately pull himself out of. I think we’ll see something that proves my point with our Paramonian Climber ivy, if it’s allowed to regrow. _It_ can actually be tracked within our lifetimes, after all. Not that we’d ever be able to _publish_ any such comparison without getting bitten.” 

“Nobody likes to be told they’ve got it all wrong, least of all the people at the top of the ladder,” agreed Janor.

“You’re telling me,” said Charlie bitterly.

“I…wasn’t really talking economics,” Zombie said, feeling certain it would fall on deaf ears. Glukkons were all about economics. It’s just that _this_ take happened to support some level of nurturing and consideration.

“Of course you weren’t,” said Janor. “You’re only a Mudokon. Your kind never needs to concern yourselves with it. The question is, are our points truly exclusive to one another?” He smiled in a way he had never seen a Glukkon smile, and it pulled at something deep in his chest like nostalgia. _Nostalgia for what?_

“No, they’re not,” said Aron behind him. “Language that turns it into somethin’ else. Machines that do the work for us. Our hands stuffed into shoes so we can’t even work them ourselves. I think I’m startin’ to get what you mean, Jan. About binding our hands costing us more than I thought.” He looked at the Paramonian Climber’s pot, and raised a hand to brush a finger over the tip of the note he’d written. It was a very un-Glukkon-like gesture. Certainly, they typically _couldn’t_ , but more than that, they typically _wouldn’t_.

Janor smiled. “You always ‘got it’, Aron, you simply didn’t see that you had. As I told you when you first took me in – there is significance in giving up meat processing for selling plants. Think about that for a while, hm? Perhaps after you deal with your customer.”

“Oh…” Aron shifted, and looked up at the ladder. “Yeah, guess we gotta get that over with. C’mon, Zombie, dust yourself off, and… let’s go tell the dumb Gluk we don’t have any Paramonian Climber to give him, after all.”

“You’re coming with me?” Zombie asked, hesitantly getting to his feet. 

He should be dreading what the customer would demand for wasting his time. He should be fearing Foggy’s baton.

He couldn’t reconcile the past he knew with the gentleness Aron’s gesture had just shown. That he had hit him _himself_ – and not in punishment but in protection of another living thing that could not defend itself, cast as such by the note meant for no eyes that should see it with empathy. And yet, they did.

Which of the mirrors displayed the world without distortion? Did either? Did both?

“Gotta make sure he doesn’t threaten you into spilling all this.” Aron swept his hand in the direction of the bizarre living space he’d found. 

He paused, however, his gaze sweeping down to his shoes, then up at the ladder. “Huh. Didn’t think that one through. Guess we’ll see if I can carry these up, huh?” 

He grasped both shoes in one hand and started hauling himself up the ladder with his free hand, and the best grasp he could manage with the heel of his occupied one. His long arms pulled him up two or three rungs at a time, and while the sight of his disproportioned body swaying in his wake under his head was silly, Zombie had to admit to himself that the sight of a Glukkon with the personal agency to climb a ladder was pretty novel. He wondered how much less silly it might look if he’d had the use of both hands.

Wondering if he’d ever see the socially-dominant species the same way again, Zombie followed after his boss. It felt like he was going crazy between the sudden opposing pulls of dread and hopelessness and warmth and whatever that nostalgia-like thing had been…

But at least the new thoughts were entertaining.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning, this chapter contains an instance of suicide baiting as an insult. Take care of yourselves!

Watching Aron lean himself on the shelves, then sit on them on his elbows to button his own suit was fascinating in its own sad way. Zombie watched him bind the arms that had managed to subdue him, and slip his hands back into his shoes, resuming the illusion of feet that carried him and rendering him helpless to even open the stockroom door from the inside.

He had never been more aware of the simple fact of needing to open the door for him, or that their waddle was a purely _psychological_ bind, to maintain the illusion of walking on legs instead of arms. He could stride, for sure, slower but more comfortably and faster than the top-heavy, awkward movement Zombie had to slow to match now. But it would make it clear just how far up his “legs” went.

All these thoughts he’d never entertained were taking their toll after a mind-numbing day, his mind churning with thought and long-held emotion he could barely contain.

The customer glared at the two of them, eyes narrowed at the cheaper material of Aron’s suit. Foggy, still waiting at the counter, visibly sagged in relief at no longer being alone with him, but tensed immediately as Aron’s presence registered in full.

“What, did he fall asleep back there?” the customer said.

Aron paused a moment, then replied, “No, he was, uh, stalling. Just afraid to return to you empty-handed.”

“He’s _still_ empty-handed.”

“That would be because we don’t have any Paramonian Climber,” said Aron.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” the customer snapped.

“They don’t have any, boss,” said his assistant. “We should look somewhere else.”

“ _Shut up_.” He waddled around the counter – strange how nonthreatening it looked now – and leaned into a glare right in Aron’s face. Tension thickened the air until it was hard to breathe. “You’re telling me a _Chump_ – who apparently can’t even afford to smoke - has more demand than he can keep up with?”

Foggy glanced between the Glukkons, the other Slig, and Zombie, and, after watching his face a bit, said, “Yeah, I believe you were too scared to come back, Zombie. You look like you walked in on a Gloktigi production meeting back there.”

The Glukkons reeled back with immediate, visceral grimaces and gave Foggy looks of deep disgust.

“Uh… Been sitting on that one a while, Foggy?” Aron said.

“Yep,” said Foggy. It carried the sound of the shit-eating grin his tentacles and mask hid.

“Got it out of your system?”

“Yep!”

“Good, now don’t do that again.”

“Uh-huh. Roger that, sir!” he said with a mocking salute to match his sarcasm. The other Slig cackled, and was immediately silenced with a glower from his boss.

“Ugh. Let’s go,” said the customer to his Slig. “Stupid Chump can’t even control his staff.” As he turned and waddled away, he gave Aron a parting glance over his shoulder, and said, “Order all the Paramonian Climber you want. You won’t see a single coin from me.”

“Yeah? Thanks. Your absence is worth more than your whole bank account,” Aron said, and Foggy broke down into helpless laughter. Zombie struggled to keep a straight face, himself, as the insult sunk in and the customer _fumed_ with no recourse to sink his anger into but low-hanging personal attacks.

“I hope your debts chase you off a bridge.”

When he and his assistant had left, and the store was empty, Aron let out a long sigh. “Okay. That’s finally over. Start closing up, guys. And Zombie? We gotta talk, when you’re done.”

Zombie cringed. That usually meant a beating.

“Need me for these talks?” Foggy asked, thinking the same. To his credit, he’d never been pleased at being asked to stay late for discipline.

“No. No, you can get some rest.”

“Huh?”

Aron gave him a deeply tired look. “Did I stutter?”

“No, sir, but…you mean, you’re _just_ gonna talk?”

“Yeah. Got a problem?”

“Uh…no, guess not.”

“Good. See you tomorrow, Foggy. Thanks for breaking that up. Zombie, see you in my office later.”

As Aron waddled away, Zombie fell into the alien, familiar motions of closing down the registers for the night.

“What the hell _happened_?” Foggy asked, over the click of the front door’s lock.

“It’s…it’s a really weird story, Foggy. I don’t think I should tell it.”

“What, does he have like…a weird porn stash back there or something? I mean, I was _joking_ about the Gloktigi thing, ew.”

“It’s definitely ‘or something’. I’d tell you if I thought he’d let me, I mean it.”

And at that hint that prying could mean trouble, Foggy left it alone. With everything closed down in the front, he headed for the side door. With a short wave and a “see ya!” he hit the button that sent steel shutters down both the inside and outside of every window on his way out, locking Zombie inside.

Aron was waiting for him outside his office door, the leafy ferns decorating either side of his desk visible before he shut the door with a bump of his shoulder.

“Okay, Zombie,” he said. “Here’s the deal. I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit. I don’t wanna involve you in this. But your on-again off-again death wish you admitted to makes it hard to incentivize you either way - and on top of that, my best friend in the whole world _likes_ you. I’m inclined not to hurt his feelings.”

Zombie remembered Aron backing off when Janor’s points clicked for him, and wondered how much he actually protested Janor liking him, but he kept his mouth shut.

“You’re bunking down there with us tonight. Try to escape and you’re dead, got it?”

So there _was_ another entrance, he thought. He wouldn’t be concerned about escape if the only exit was into the currently-locked store. “Yes, sir, got it. Is, uh…is this gonna be permanent?”

“Maybe. I’m gonna be honest, Zombie, you made yourself into a wild card, there. We’re taking this a step at a time.”

“Won’t the others get curious if I never join them in the employee bunks?”

“I’ll handle that tomorrow. Gotta confer with Jan about some things first. Anyway, c’mon. I’ll get you introduced properly, let the guys know.”

Aron led Zombie back into the stockroom. This time, he kicked his shoes off and shoved them off behind a bag of soil propped up against the half-empty shelves. As he sat on them to free himself from his suit, Zombie stepped forward in an ingrained offer to help.

“Here, I can get-…” Aron looked up and narrowed his eyes, and Zombie went abruptly silent, backing up.

“Goes against the whole point of this, Zombie. I didn’t start this thing to have a Mudokon help me into and out of it.”

“What is ‘this thing’?” Zombie asked as he watched Aron unbutton enough to properly move his elbows.

Aron undid two more buttons and stood to shrug what remained over his shoulders, resuming his appearance from before, and visibly relaxing once freed. He opened the trapdoor and pointed down at it. “Get down there first,” he said.

Zombie shrugged, and lowered himself onto the ladder. Aron joined him at the bottom, descending much more slowly this time, and he gestured at the symbol on the door, of the bared Glukkon hands.

“ _This thing_ is the Free Hands Society,” he said. “And if you can’t figure out at least a little of what that means by now, then I can’t help you.”


	6. Chapter 6

Aron led Zombie back into the large living area. The game had been packed up and put away, and the Glukkons were scattered around the room, engaged in various quieter activities. Onisk and Estric shared a book, while Lane worked at a canvas propped up in front of him with a thin brush. Charlie stood at the doorway on the other end of the room, fully dressed in cheap Pud attire – like someone had taken the fabric from Mudokon work clothes and used them for a Glukkon suit’s pattern. Janor assisted him, balancing carefully on one arm as the other reached high to help snap his coveralls in place.

“Not staying the night, Charlie?” Aron said.

Charlie twisted towards him, his mouth open to reply before he saw Zombie and hesitated.

“Got a doctor’s appointment,” he said, finally.

“At this time of night?” Zombie asked automatically, and the way every pair of Glukkon eyes focused on him said _don’t pry_ in their shared intensity.

“Not your business to know,” Aron growled under his breath, leaning down at his ear, “unless Charlie says otherwise. Got it?”

Zombie swallowed heavily and nodded. “Yeah, got it.”

Aron straightened up. “Sorry, Charlie. Good luck with your appointment.”

“Thanks, Aron. See ya tomorrow, I hope.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Charlie. Promise. I’ll fill you in on what we come up with tonight.”

“Heh…thanks.”

Charlie walked off – first in a more comfortable-seeming motion like Zombie had thought Glukkons might be capable of, but transitioning to that familiar waddle as he vanished into the unlit hallway beyond. Zombie heard the rumble of an elevator’s motor.

Zombie kept that in mind as Aron called for everyone – the one missing Glukkon, the skinny, spidery one, emerged from one of the side rooms and joined the rest in pushing the beanbags back into the center for a meeting. It was such a strange thing to see, a meeting of Glukkons where everyone lounged on beanbags and shared earnest, easy smiles and interest. Zombie remembered glimpses of the conferences held by management of the RuptureFarms plant he’d been part of, especially when an exec from 1029 had come by. They had been stuffy, choking things. Any laughter or smiling was in greedy, unchecked, overzealous ambition. There had been little respect or camaraderie beyond having a shared goal.

This was a meeting of _friends_ , and Zombie realized he’d never really thought of Glukkons having those, even if it seemed like it should be a thing taken for granted at the same time.

Janor pushed up an extra beanbag and motioned for the two of them to take a seat. Zombie approached tentatively, unsure of joining this ring of Glukkons like he was one of them, but also unsure of not doing as he was asked, fearing their suspicion.

He eventually turned it around to sit on it like it was a chair, awkwardly cross-legged.

“Okay, guys, listen up,” Aron said, once he’d settled down on his own beanbag. “As you all know, we got a little situation, here.” He gestured at Zombie. “Despite Charlie’s…encouragement otherwise, I don’t think offing him is the best idea. All of ya seemed pretty…uncomfortable with it when Jan spoke up.”

“The Mud pointed it out, himself,” said Lane. “Everything we do to distance ourselves from killing. Doing it with our own hands is…different.”

“I felt it, too,” said Aron. “I mean-… I dunno that I would have done it even if Zombie here hadn’t spoken up. It felt…weird.”

“The word you’re looking for is _wrong_ ,” said Janor. “There are some things we truly _are_ above using our hands for. The question, then, is: is the solution our society endorses, this removal of this personal touch, the _correct_ solution?”

A silence settled into the group. Janor seemed to like it when he pointed out things they seemed to miss, even if this one was so glaringly obvious that he wondered why nobody was saying it. It made him _angry_ nobody was saying it, as “enlightened” as Janor thought they were. “Is _‘is killing wrong?’_ seriously a deep philosophical question for you guys?”

Janor smiled, but in humor. “When you are taught from birth it isn’t, yes, it can be. What was your job at RuptureFarms, Zombie? Were you involved in any part of the slaughter?”

“He was in packaging,” said Aron for him. Zombie felt a tinge of annoyance. He could have answered that, himself. Why offer him a place if he could only speak up _sometimes_?

“Ah, so you were never asked to kill. I wonder if…” he trailed off for a moment, and his smile turned warm again. “Yes, I think having your perspective to counter ours would be valuable.”

Zombie didn’t say anything, sitting on the turmoil of the warring wonder and indignation in his mind, sparking and roiling in this newfound safety to show it. 

While a Glukkon who genuinely wanted to improve himself was a welcome sight, a Glukkon who _actively wanted his input_ unheard of in the best way…it was literally this or die, like every other job, on top of a job that put him directly in the path of entitled moneybags or pretentious Gluks who played at something nicer than they were by surrounding themselves with living things. Was he valued as a person, or once again as a tool to be used, a sorting algorithm to smack down bad ideas instead of a being with his own thoughts and emotions?

He’d never dared hope for escape before all this, but he knew now there was an elevator on the other side of this underground home. He’d damn well try tonight. This was driven home when the spidery Glukkon opened his mouth.

“Hey, no way? This is _our_ place. Wasn’t the whole point of this thing not relying on Sligs or Mudokons the way we do up top? Being free of the bonds we’ve set for ourselves or something like that?”

“Cody-” Janor began in warning, but anger flashed hot in his mind and the words bubbled up into Zombie’s throat like bile before he could even think of stopping himself. He found himself gripping tight fistfuls of the beanbag he sat on, their filling grinding under his grip.

“ _Excuse me?_ Your ‘spiritual leader’ here goes on this big philosophical lesson on how Mudokon Pops shouldn’t have happened. And you’re talking about being _bound_? _You_? You were literally going to _chop us up and eat us_ -”

“ _Molluck_ was,” said Onisk, “and his board. Not us.”

“ _Were you complaining?_ ” Zombie retorted with barely a thought, swept up in the torrent from the floodgates. “Were you arguing in favor of our lives or were you just sitting back and nodding along?”

“Okay, Zombie, calm down,” Aron said, and Zombie _growled_ at him, a sound no Mudokon got to make to anyone but another Mudokon or himself and live.

“Just shut up! You wanna talk about distancing yourself, look at this! You were talking about shipping me off for food, with Charlie’s help, without batting an eye! Now that I’m sitting down with all of you, suddenly it’s ‘not me, wasn’t my idea’?”

“I’d just like to point out that none of us besides Aron knew about the plan for Mudokon Pops _at all_ until production started elsewhere, after the incident,” Estric said. Janor let out a heavy sigh beside him and remained silent, watching as all the pain Zombie had been bottling up his whole life came pouring out of him.

“ _Were. You. Complaining?_ ” he demanded, frustrated tears springing to his eyes. “It doesn’t matter – you didn’t _care_ until-until…” he foundered, unable to produce words for what was happening right now.

“Until you were given a place among us,” said Janor. He kept his head low. “Tell me, my friends. How much did you resist admitting that what you thought you knew was wrong? Cody, you were _appalled_ when we found you, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Cody. “I was just…I couldn’t see past all the…not wearing suits stuff. Pretty stupid of me, right?” 

“And now this is as the home and family you never had. This is…this is exactly what I meant. Thank you, Zombie.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he said, harshly sarcastic. Of course he’d turn it back to himself. Back to all this. “Born to do all your labor or die, no matter what you do to us. _Sure_ , let me carry all your emotional burdens, too. Why the hell not. Go ahead and kill me. I don’t care. You wanted my input, there it is. You can’t unhear it. But it’s all I’m giving you.” _And if you don’t, I’m outta here anyway_ , he added to himself in his mind.

“We don’t _want_ to kill you, Zombie,” said Aron. “That’s the point of this talk.”

“And _I_ don’t want to hear you all talk about how you’re _freeing yourselves_ like you aren’t your own legal owners!”

“We are bound, but in such a way we choose to be,” said Janor quietly. “Not listening to lesser- no,” he added quickly as Zombie snarled, “I’m sorry, not listening to _other_ beings is one of these binding choices, I have learned today. To address your earlier point, our first instinct is to act as if there had never been any wrongdoing on our parts, once your voice has been added to ours. This, too, we must learn to move beyond.”

“Yeah, I’m glad _someone_ here’s got _some_ sense.”

“Let me try to make this right, Zombie, please. He won’t be here to perform the tasks we perform for ourselves,” Janor continued, addressing the other Glukkons. “His presence can only benefit our understanding of ourselves – denying his kind denies any view of ourselves other than our own. Do you all agree with including him?”

“I don’t wanna kill him, so I’m in favor,” said Aron.

“What was that ‘try to escape and die’ thing about, then?” Zombie said.

“Part putting on the suit, part just plain having no choice. We’re kinda playing with fire, here,” Aron said. “You’ll see if we vote you in.”

“I’m willing to trust Janor’s judgment,” said Lane, and Estric nodded. Onisk and Cody grumbled indistinctly, but nodded, too.

“We’d be minority even if Charlie was with us,” said Onisk. “Let’s see where it goes.”


End file.
